Thursday, May 28, 2009

Is Television The Smart Man's Joke?

Today I was beginning my seventh straight hour of watching television when I began to wonder why it is that Americans are so obsessed with watching TV? Is it the 70 billion channels of basically the same shows replayed over and over again, each showing with even more and more commercials? Is it the volume control that allows you to drown out every other person in your house, making the tube the one thing that separates you from suicide? Or is the shear brilliance of entertainment value?
Nahhhhh....
I have a theory.
I think that television was invented by smart guys who wanted to suck all of their stupid, alcoholic bullies into a cyber-land of nothingness in order to get back at them for years and years of wet willies. If they could just get all of their enemies addicted to a box that had pretty pictures and clapping sounds then they would be free to take over the world and create large, earth-killing factories with ease.
But the television is much more complicated than it leads on. Africa is completely missing out on the difficulties of America's every day life. There are so many buttons and remotes, how can a single person keep track of it all?
First, there's the picture quality. You have to be able to position yourself just close enough to see all of the acne scars on Seal's face but far enough away so you don't have to stare at the zits covering the Jonas Brothers' overrated faces.
Secondly, there's the difficult task of picking the right channel. Do you switch between commercials and take the risk of missing the entrance song of Friends that you've now memorized down to the last clap? Or do you stick it out through the commercial break and catch yourself so embarrassingly singing along to the CreditReport.com song?
And then there's the SUPER confusing task of deciding on volume. Do you play it really loud and then mute it when your wife/mother comes in who talk super loud just to emphasis that you've got it turned up too loud? Or do you keep it quiet enough so they can't hear from the other room? But then if you do that, you miss about every other work that Ray Romano says and then you can't figure out why the invisible people in his kitchen are laughing hysterically at his big nose?
It's all quite daunting. No wonder America's education has been heading down the toilet...along with Tori Spelling's career--which happens to be what I was watching for a good two hours of my oh-so-fullfilling life today. Watching other "famous" people's worthless lives really do peppin up a girl's day.
Those Smart Guys had quite the sense of humor.

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